AUGUST IS UPON US, WHICH MEANS NATIONAL SANDWICH MONTH IS HERE! I ABSOLUTELY ADORE SANDWICHES, AND WILL BE BRINGING YOU RECIPES FOR MANY DELICIOUS VERSIONS AS THE MONTH GOES ON. STICK AROUND, IT’S SANDWICH TIME! If someone asked me my favorite foods, a good burger would be really high up on the list. I consider them in a culinary class all their own, and tend to … Continue reading national sandwich month: classic summer cheeseburgers
Well, Thanksgiving is over! Time for ornaments, twinkly lights, Bing Crosby Christmas music, and piles of baked goods. Why not start with this one, perfect for wintry morning breakfasts?
I don’t remember the first time I had stollen, but I think it might have come from Trader Joe’s, of all places. I was hooked immediately! Traditionally made into larger loaf shapes, these little fruit-packed German stollen buns are like a more refined version of fruitcake. All the familiar flavors are there, but instead of a sugar soaked “cake”, the fruits are jammed into soft, lightly sweet buns, sharing space with a sweet center of almond marzipan. Doesn’t that sound good to you? It sure does to me.
Continue reading “marzipan stollen buns with crunchy sugar glaze”
I can say with extreme confidence that any kid in any school cafeteria in America ate these rolls growing up. At my school, they were ubiquitous with a tray full of mushy spaghetti that, no matter how gross, everyone still seemed to love.
Here’s something strange that maybe you witnessed during lunch — kids would hollow out the dinner roll and shove the spaghetti inside it, then devour the whole thing. Somehow, this was a thing. Even kids who went to school in other states knew of this! How did this strange method of spaghetti-eating become widespread knowledge? The world may never know.
If there’s one thing I haven’t truly mastered in the kitchen, it’s homemade bread. I just haven’t made all that much of it. I can hold my own with pizza dough and no-knead bread, and I did make some damn good challah once, but that’s sort of the extent of my bread-making experience.
A short while back, Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread made the rounds on the interwebs. It’s still super popular, as more people discover the recipe all the time. It’s a miracle of bread- and dough-making technique, perfect for all the people out there who feel that a good loaf of homemade, crackly-crusted bread is beyond them. The ingredients are mixed by hand into a rough dough which sits at room temperature for several hours, and then gets baked in a cast iron dutch oven. When I first made it, I was shocked that a loaf of bread so good was able to come from my crappy electric oven.
oven + apron 